The venues, events, troupes, and individuals who have transformed Austin into a "Yes, and" boomtown

Arts StoryAugust 25, 2016, by Robert Faires

"...Today, GGG distinguishes itself as not just the longest-running all-female musical improv troupe in Austin but also one of the longest-running improv troupes in town, period. The quality of this collective's full-length musicals and formats riffing on TV shows (GGGlee, Jersey Shorez, Pink Is the New Black) has led to gigs in New York, Minneapolis, Seattle, Honolulu, Atlanta, and Dallas, plus a pair of Rudy Kloptic Awards for Outstanding Improvisational Theatre Ensemble from Austin's B..."

Eight players improvise for 40 hours straight to help save their artistic home

Arts StoryJune 26, 2009, by Robert Faires

"...Several improvisers recently acquired the venue's lease (see "The Hideout," May 22) to keep it as active a center for improv as it has been for the past decade. Funds raised from the marathon will go toward keeping the Hideout solvent, though 10% of the proceeds will also go to the AustinImprovCollective and 10% to the educational program Theatre Action Project..."

Austin's strong improv scene is about to get even stronger, with a new training center and performance space

Arts StoryFebruary 22, 2008, by Avimaan Syam

"...The Merlin Works Institute and the Gnap! Theater Season are the brainchildren of veteran improvisers Shana Merlin and Shannon McCormick, who regularly perform together as the improv duo Get Up. The two companies will work in tandem, not unlike a music producer and a record label: Merlin, voted Best Improv Teacher by the AustinImprovCollective, will mold students and troupes at her school, while McCormick, who has previously produced No Shame Theatre and co-produced the Out of Bounds Improv Festival and Miniature Golf Tournament, will showcase the groups and style that the pair would like to promote...."

"...It’s true: Upstairs, in the theatre run by that venue’s
talented cadre of improvisers, some of the performers,
male and female, are doffing their duds in the middle of a show.
And sometimes? Sometimes the audience –
at least some of the audience – is joining them.
WTF, indeed.
“You can blame Andy Crouch [of the AustinImprovCollective],”
says Marc Majcher, who recently directed (and appeared in) one of the Live Nude Improv gigs.
“Andy wanted to do something really risky and transgressive after attending
the Rude Mechs’ production of Dionysus in ‘69.
Risky, both in the sense of the physical nudity and emotional intimacy, and in blowing out the process of putting together the show itself.”
And what about – the audience?
“Oh, it's completely audience-interactive,” says Majcher, grinning.
“We take out the seats and risers from the theater, and the show’s performed in the round.”
So Andy Crouch was really inspired by that Dionysus in ‘69 –
“Exactly” says Majcher. “The pretense is that everyone, audience included,
is there as part of the first rehearsal for a new play..."

"...It’s that third leg – which might more commonly be a reference to a fellow’s cock, duh, but let’s try to move beyond the patriarchy’s tallywhacker obsession for half a mo – and it’s most often embodied by more than one person at a time. Sketch is often rendered by a whole company, a gang, a team, a crew, some collective noun of people – and they’re all enacting their scripted material that’s been crafted to make you bust a gut laughing, or to lampoon some questionable tropes of modern life, or to achieve a stunning combination of both those goals...."

"...According to ColdTowne majordomo Michael Jastroch, "We started Sketch Fest because we wanted to provide a crucible for locals doing scripted comedy to come together and build a scene that is as vibrant, dynamic, and nationally well-regarded as the improv community. Since we began the festival, people who previously had little knowledge of each other have begun coming together and working on material." Jastroch cites sketch successes on the viral video front with video sketch collective Humordy and the consistently sold-out live performances of Stag Comedy, The Hustle Show, The Encyclopedia Show, Ghetto Sketch Warlock, and Mac Daddy's Bar and Grill...."

Are home art galleries and mini-performance venues the answer to the space crunch?

Arts StoryJune 21, 2018, by Robert Faires

"...Remarkably, several arts groups without homes have lined up new facilities that they expect to occupy before 2018 ends: Tapestry Dance Studios, which had to give up its South Austin home three years ago and has been housing with Balance Dance Studios, will move into new digs on Pleasant Valley Road near Riverside; Pump Project will soon ink a lease on a new location in the same neighborhood; ICOSA Collective, which was part of Pump Project's complex, is joining the Canopy complex on Springdale; Art.Science.Gallery., which had been at Canopy for five years, has jumped the river to a South Austin spot near Manchaca and Stassney; and HOPE Outdoor Gallery is taking its ever evolving graffiti-coated walls from the abandoned condo project on Baylor Street to the wide-open ranges of Carson Creek Ranch. (And while Sky Candy was never homeless, it's worth noting here that the aerial arts company is moving to a new, larger facility in the Springdale General development this summer.)
[inset-1-right]..."

"...14, Hideout, 12mid Austin's tiny orchestra has been on the road since fall, but not in the traditional sense. The collective or local classicists wrote and performed live backing for Petra and the Wolf, an update of the play..."

"...Friday’s performance at the No Zone (5809 Alsace Trail) promises rebellion beyond music. After a very loud bill of various homegrown and touring noise crews, Austinite and political activist Scott Crow (generally not capitalized) gives a PowerPoint presentation on creating collective power to confront capitalism..."

"...The Hideout Theatre (recently taken over by the improv triumvirate of Roy Janik, Kareem Badr, and Jessica Arjet) has been offering classes since 1999, with a curriculum based on the work of Canadian improv guru Keith Johnstone – author of the influential Impro for Storytelling and creator of Theatresports – whose methods often explore the acting out and negotiation of status roles. This school is presided over by Andy Crouch, Improvised Shakespeare star and founder of the all-encompassing AustinImprovCollective..."

The Five Families of Austinimprov go Out of Bounds with the 13th annual comedy festival

Arts StoryAugust 28, 2014, by Wayne Alan Brenner

"...When we were in New Orleans, we weren't allowed to book shows outside of our theatre space. And then when we got here, and the Hideout was being run as a collective, and you were allowed to form your own groups and play with whoever you wanted to – that's a special thing, to have that kind of artistic freedom, without someone telling you what to do..."

In just months, New Orleans improv troupe ColdTowne has become deeply involved in Austin's comedy scene, and now it's close to getting its own venue

Arts StoryJune 2, 2006, by Robert Faires

"...It's been less than a year since the members of New Orleans improv troupe ColdTowne made our town their town (after escaping the wrath of Katrina, if you didn't know), but in those few months they've woven themselves deeply into the fabric of Austin's comedy scene: helping launch the AustinImprovCollective, performing regularly at the Hideout and in the annual performance jamboree FronteraFest, producing their own three-day festival of comedy films and performances, and having member Chris Trew win the Funnywriter Sketch Contest at Esther's Follies. As if that weren't enough, soon the troupe may have something that'll really bind them to Austin: their own venue..."

In its eighth year, the annual Austin comedy festival did this city proud

Arts StorySeptember 11, 2009, by Wayne Alan Brenner

"...The Out of Bounds Comedy Festival has come and gone, leaving in its wake a scattered community of local performers only now beginning to pay back their massive sleep debts. Seven nights of impromptu antics can take a toll on the most robust of humans, so we won't be surprised to see the AustinImprovCollective's Andy Crouch lurching zombielike across the cityscape or Kaci Beeler of Parallelogramophonograph crashed on a street-side bench, Available Cupholders' Ace Manning mumbling incoherently in an alleyway or Jason Vines of Improv for Evil in nothing but a frock coat, tied halfway up a lamppost..."

Bob McNichol & Erika May are among the most literary improvisers in town, each of their spontaneous narratives carried along by the depth of the characters they create

Arts StoryJune 22, 2007, by Wayne Alan Brenner

"...McNichol (a tall, gangly Pennsylvanian with a Bob Newhart demeanor and wits sharper than a box cutter) and May (a fiercely talented Texas native who seems like the prettiest softball shortstop ever, whether she actually plays or not) met while studying and performing improv in Chicago, soaking in a few years of concentrated Del Closeness before bringing their own matrimonial closeness home to roost in the big, multibirded nest of the AustinImprovCollective. (They're also, with Rachel Madorsky and Dave Buckman, in the Frank Mills improv/sketch comedy troupe, more about which in a later profile.)..."